The Road to Somewhere

xc62701 said:
Holy balls it was cold this morning! Forecast said 38 so that's what I was prepared for. The whole middle of the ride it was 28-29 degrees. YIKES! I had my winter shoes and winter tights on but up top I could have used one more warmer layer. I was actually happy to ride some of the hills harder to stay warm. It was a slower than usual commute overall since it took me a bit to get going. Since it was so dark out I covered my lights to try to see the aurora as well but no luck. I'm looking forward to upper 60's when I ride home!

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thats a long commute! good on you for riding it I would be too gross and sweaty after 2 hours to do any work.
 
iman29 said:
thats a long commute! good on you for riding it I would be too gross and sweaty after 2 hours to do any work.
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Thankfully I’m not too gross when I get to work. Working with high school students - they are usually much smellier than me, so all is good. Thankfully the ride home is more chill too. I’ll enjoy the higher temps later.
 
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Ironcross came and went this past weekend! Dang! That was just as hard as I remembered, but I did much better than the previous year. My goal was to drop some weight and not suffer as much in the hills. Check! I dropped to my goal of 19 lbs lost for the race and that surely helped. Unfortunately last Wednesday I started getting sick and was out of work and on my ass Thursday and Friday. I drove out Saturday knowing full well that I might not be getting to the starting line. I had been looking forward to this event for so long I had to at least go. @Sven Migot and I met up and had lunch and went for a nice ride on the bike path there and I didn't feel bad. So that was promising. We had some beers and some good food and all was a go for Sunday morning.

Sunday morning it was chilly! 38 ish at the car, but I can tell you it was colder as we rode though the streets of South Williamsport. The best part was that there was no rain. Either at the start or in the prior days. The course was definitely the driest I have ever seen it. That was a good thing as those hills are relentless. I told myself to ride consistent but don't do anything stupid. The course is basically 6 climbs and they are all long and tough - some road, some gravel, and some trail. I was able to grind up each climb but I had my fun on the MTB in the few sections of singletrack or the gravel descents. I passed a few guys white knuckling the descents on gravel bikes while I got the WTF look as I blasted past them. My fat ass can still go down fast, but up is a different story. That was fun. All in all, everything was rideable and the colors were just amazing out there. I knew I wasn't going to PR anything as I was super light in 2022 and was ripping on the course. I did get some 2nd best Strava segments of the 4 attempts so that means I was doing something right. I struggled up the last climb and stopped the clock at 5:26. I ended up 70th of 110 people and am very happy with that. I definitely coughed up a lung out there and amazingly didn't cramp! I never really attacked anywhere, I was just happy to ride and finish the event.

I looked back and I was 2:15 behind the winner last year and 1:45 behind the winner this year. That has to count for something! I'm hoping to keep the weight and fitness trend going in the right direction. If I can get to the spring in better form, hopefully I'll race more next year and it'll be more fun. I'm certainly going to try!

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